Project Hidamari




Project Start Date: August 27th, 2005

    Prelude:  Running concurrent to Project SunBurn, Hidamari will be the preliminary server for thugs.net.  Originally a Sparcserver 20 (with 64Mb RAM and a single 80MHz processor) I bought for $5 USD for parts and experimentation, it soon evolved into Projekt Zwanzig (German for "Project Twenty").  When I upgraded Ten-chan, I found I had enough parts left over to upgrade the Sparcserver 20.  Well, it was marginally entertaining at best.  A few days later, I found a lot of Sparcserver 20 parts on eBay, so I bid on it and won (again, for $5 USD).  The lot included another 80 MHz processor, a spare CDRom drive, a fast SCSI/Ethernet combo SBUS card, a framebuffer card, and best of all, 512Mb RAM!  Once I installed Solaris 8, Projekt Zwanzig was well underway.

    Shortly thereafter, I became bored with the unit, and, after having installed Redhat Linux 6.2 on Ten-chan, I installed RedHat on Zwanzig as well.  I fooled around with RedHat for a while, getting used to AfterStep and other window managers and perusing the Usenet, but eventually got bored of that, too.  Much like with Ten-chan, I found that I wasn't doing anything constructive, and really wasn't learning anything.  So, Zwanzig was put on under the workbench in the Lab and quickly forgotten.

    When I was drawing up the plans for Project SunBurn, I kept a mental record of everything I'd eventually be removing from my Sparcstation 10, such as the two 180MHz processors, and decided to upgrade Zwanzig and restore it to its original use, a server.  And, much like Project SunBurn, I felt the project needed a new name, something that related to the sun.  SunBlock or SunScreen? Nah, that's better suited to my upcoming router/firewall project.  SunTan? Nah...

    I was sitting in my living room, listening to a Maison Ikkoku soundtrack CD, my cat Morrigan was lying in the sun on my living room floor.  She rolled onto her back, stretched her legs and yawned, just as the next track on the CD started.  The song? "Hidamari", which means "sunny spot" in Japanese (if I remember correctly).  How appropriate!

Project Details:  (Coming Soon)

Hardware Required: (Coming Soon)

Estimated Date of Completion: (To be determined)

CJ
08/27/2005